Salt Sugar Fat: How The Food Giants Hooked Us (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
Finished reading "Sugar Fat Salt: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" (2013) by Michael Moss. As an exception to my bias against books written by journalists, this book serves as one of my favorite investigative journalist books that explores how the three items have become almost synonymous with the food we eat today.The book extensively explores how sugar, fat and salt have been incorporated into the food we have today by the major food & beverage giants such as Kraft, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, General Foods and others. Although they are the source of obesity and other health issues in the country, the book sheds light on how its immediate removal is basically impossible because of other important factors to be considered (e.g. simply meeting market demands, reducing food spoilage, feeding populations by practical means). Also, it delves into just how much R&D goes into the simple foods we see everyday (for better or worse) and how much lobbying takes place in the US.Sugar Fat Salt explains how the predicament of looking out for public and corporate interests is never practical because of fundamentally conflicting principles: government bodies need to look out for public health as it contributes to public health costs, whereas corporations need to sell their products laden with the 3 items in order to basically survive. Also, without using the 3 items, the people wouldn't even buy the products.The book eventually illustrates how the use of sugar, falt and salt is never a black-and-white issue; it's made up of a lot of contentious gray areas. Ultimately, the choice to eat unhealthy foods depend on the people themselves. While there is a constant tussle between the companies and government bodies, understanding the choices we make is the first step towards solving this impasse. Amazing. Absolutely eye-opening. I was listening to it on my way to the grocery store to get granola bars for my husband's lunch packs, and I ended up leaving with a bag of peaches and a handful of walnuts.Moss makes a great point about how unusual it is to drink 10 spoons of sugar in a single can of Coke by asking if you would add 10 spoons of sugar to your tea. The story of original Kellogg's sugarless cornflakes invented as an alternative to the American meaty breakfast, which were then hijacked by his relative and turned into a concoction with 50% of sugar, followed by other companies' offerings topping 75% of sugar nowadays, is a chilling reminder that food companies don't give a crap about our health. They do give a crap, however, about Wall Street's growing demand for profits, and consumers' rising concerns about obesity - not by reducing sugar, fat or salt in their products, but by changing the naming and imagery to less harmful, like replacing the words "sweet" or "sugary" on cereal boxes with "frosted." Or by claiming fruit content in products that contain fruit juice concentrate, which basically is no different from high-fructose syrup.The laurel of creepiness goes to Nestle, who owns both one of the most salt and trans-fat stuffed "food," Hot Pockets, AND Novartis - a medical business offering stomach reduction surgeries, complete with an array of food-drugs that can be fed through a pipe to freshly modified patients. Nestle wins it all. This shit sends chills down my spine.
What do You think about Salt Sugar Fat: How The Food Giants Hooked Us (2013)?
Very interesting look into the development and history of processed foods in this country.
—bess
I think i will get some importance knowledge
—Neelisha
